sfred

In the spirit of the holiday season, here's a public domain photo of a destination not on any of our lists.  You can get here by certain kinds of ships (and allegedly by sleigh).  However, while Cunard has come close and has occasionally hosted a famous resident onboard, it is not yet a Cunard port or cruise-by.

Happy/Merry Christmas everyone!

2 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

Correct. That's QE departing Wellington on December 9th after her recent visit there, as seen from one of the Beacon Hill webcams hosted by the Greater Wellington Regional Council.

You did very well to capture QE as it went by.  It didn't look like those webcams had a rewind feature.  I looked for QE's arrival earlier that morning, but she had already docked by the time I got online here in Brisbane. 

QE at Wellington NZ?

50 minutes ago, maggielou362 said:

I do have one concern regarding our upcoming voyage: how on earth do I NOT gain 20kg on our ten-night cruise? The food looks fabulous. Real hints appreciated, this is not a rhetorical question!

My dilemma also!  The only things that work for me:

1.  I try to board a few kilos light, to have a chance to come out even at the end..

2.  I use stairs instead of lifts all the time, and roam the decks in the early mornings and before dinner when the ship is quiet.  I'm not much of a gym person, so these activities are my exercise.  In the mornings, I typically have the ship mostly to myself (Mrs sfred likes to sleep in) and it is very enjoyable  to watch the sunrise outside with a coffee. 

3.  I limit myself to only having desserts that catch fire.  Baked Alaska, Cherries Jubilee, Crepes Suzette, etc.  This cuts out dessert most nights, but then the occasion of the flambes, typically on formal nights, makes for a special treat.

4.  Both the Mrs and I love really long walks on port days, particularly at places we haven't been to before.  Although I admit we then offset the walks at lunch to sample the local cuisine and spirits.  But hey, we're on holiday!

We had 36 nights on QE recently, and I managed to disembark at my usual displacement.  Good luck - best wishes for your QM2 voyage!

Safe onward travels back to the UK, @Pushpit.  Thanks for all your updates.

3 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

Yes indeed, that's Hamburg. That photo of mine is the view looking toward the east up the river Elbe not long after departing Cruise Center Steinwerder.

I thought it might be Hamburg from the cranes, but then I didn't see the tall'ish buildings (which are in google views and in your hint photo) in the webcam, so I moved on to other potential locations and tried Belfast.  Perhaps the Hamburg buildings are behind the rain in the webcam, or just obscured in the low light..

13 hours ago, bluemarble said:

Here's one that would be easy if it weren't for the rain. It still may be fairly easy with the rain. This is a webcam image showing a Cunard ship at a port we've seen before.

Belfast?  There's a potential match for the cranes and angle of the cruise ship pier.  Except that I can't find a live webcam with this view.  QV was there twice in 2023.

4 hours ago, Pushpit said:

 Then there is a photo from my table neighbour in Carinthia Lounge, with the breakfast custard doughnut and Caffè Latte.

Those custard doughnuts are wonderful.  I have to avoid passing through Carinthia whenever they are on offer.

Looks like you may encounter another bumpy area off the US east coast prior to arriving in NY.

6 minutes ago, roscoe39 said:

ps...two minutes later an acknowledgement of receipt...so half way there!

The email acknowledgment reply is a good indication. 

It usually then takes them 2-3 days to process the request, and they'll send a new booking confirmation showing the onboard credit amount.

PPS

Unlike the UK email which is plural shareholderbenefits@------, the Australia email address is singlular

shareholderbenefit@carnivalaustralia.com

PS

I never need to send anything besides the usual info (Name, Booking Reference, Ship name, Sailing Date, and Voyage:number), along with a pdf attachment of my shareholder statement dated within three months of sailing, with account information and other holdings redacted.

Hi @roscoe39.  I've always used the Australia email for shareholder credit - shareholderbenefit@carnivalaustralia.com

I presume they would also handle NZ requests? 

This Australia email seems to work reliably now.  I just recently had a 12 December request for a February 2024 sailing approved.  I previously had problems mid-last year with emails getting bounced to the US where they were ignored/rejected/filtered by the Carnival IT systems.

Good luck - let me know if I can help further.

There's some buildings which might be the buildings in Alexandria Egypt.  I'm far from certain, but I'll throw that out as my guess for the day.

20 minutes ago, Pushpit said:

I went for the Goat Cheese Tart, the Bulgur Wheat Salad, then the Beef Wellington, medium rare, and finally the mercifully small Prune and Armagnac Sticky Toffee pudding. I saw the Baked Alaska and it was pretty large. Probably one of the best Cunard meals that I have had.

 Yum!  Our last QE voyage had the goats cheese tart a few times.  I found it very tasty.  The Wellington also looks nicely done.  I'm envious. 

4 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

Those two towers at the far right might be a useful feature, but I'm not getting anywhere with that approach either.

I had tried looking for the buildings also.  No luck.  I suppose it's possible that they no longer exist.

1 hour ago, Pushpit said:

He also went through the weather for the next few days, explaining it was "complex". By that he means tomorrow Saturday sounds fine and unremarkable, however we face a storm on Sunday afternoon, gale force 8, maybe severe gale force 9, before returning to something more sensible on Monday. The routing has been adjusted for this, with a Rhumb line route to the south of the norm, then Great Circle to get northwards towards Nova Scotia and Nantucket. We shall see.

The North Atlantic does look a bit bumpy.  Numbers are wave heights in meters.  Thanks for your reports, @Pushpit.

I see this morning that an option has been added to the en-au Australia/NZ site under Support to Log In / register to My Account.  I tried to register, but get an red colour text error message at Step 2 (where you enter name, address, DOB, and world club number)  "Bad request.  Mandatory parameters not passed".  Same result in both Firefox and MS Edge.

Has anyone else in Aus/NZ been successful?

On 10/28/2023 at 1:45 AM, Host Hattie said:

Happy Black Cat Day from Biggles

I'm just catching up on the past few months of postings from this thread.  Sympathies @Colin_Cameron on your dad's health and travel changes.  Also @D&N on your loss of one of your companions.  .

And apologies to Biggles for missing "Black Cat Day".  After the Barcelona finish of our recent QE adventure in September, we went by train to Madrid for a bit of business before returning to Australia.  It wasn't all work, though, and we managed to fit in a day trip to Toledo.  We had a very nice day, and lunch was delicious Iberian ham sandwiches from a local shop.  While eating our lunch outside and enjoying the views out to the river, a local stray black kitten came by, hoping for us to share.  It looked like it hadn't had anything to eat in several days, and we were happy to provide a few small pieces of ham and cheese for which it (couldn't tell he vs. she) seemed very grateful.  I hope it found a home.

Cunard knows our birthdays when we enter it during the booking process, and also when logging into mycunard, so I guess the info would be passed along to the ship.

The one time I was aboard on my birthday I received a card (not personalised) with pre-printed signatures from the captain, entertainment director, and hotel GM.  There was nothing else, which was fine as I'm not a big birthday person.  Although I wouldn't have said no to a free drink.

Interesting...   I haven't heard that term "closed loop" before. Thanks @NE John and @Underwatr. To qualify as closed loop, do you know if it has to be the same port (eg, NY to NY) or can it be any two ports both in the US?

When we did the QE SF to Barcelona tip in Aug/Sep, the only embarkation port between SF and Ft Lauderdale was LA.  In LA we did not have to get off the ship (although we did) and the ship did not have to be zeroed out.  In Ft Lauderdale, after calls in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Aruba (none of which was an embarkation port), we had to exit the ship in Ft Lauderdale (we planned to anyway), clear US immigration, and the ship had to be zeroed out. 

7 hours ago, D&N said:

I've been wondering about posting this one for a while.

I think the berth is quite distinctive. I have an almost identical zoomed out a bit if it's too difficult.

It is a port that I've seen posted here previously.

No luck for me.  I've tried to examine QM2's flags, and also the lettering on the sides of the two gangways, but the resolution isn't sufficient to make anything out. 

13 minutes ago, alibabacruisers said:

Thanks sfred!  I also was healthy for the cruise but husband had a little bit of cough towards the end, but was ok. That is interesting about the anti-malarial precautions vs insect repellent.  Still have never tried G&T, but maybe next cruise.

 

We have booked QV for 2025 South America and also QM2 2025 Fjords, both for my hopefully impending retirement 😉  How about you?  What is coming up for you?

Because of our Panama transit on our voyage, we were especially concerned about malaria.  So much so that we took a preventative dose of G&T almost every day.  It seemed the least we could do to maintain health. 🙂

Your future voyages sound wonderful.  Best wishes!  We loved our QV trip from Rio to Santiago in February 2020.  We got home to Brisbane just a week or so before Australia's borders closed for the duration of covid.

We're back on QE in February for a Sydney to South Pacific trip, and also a short QM2 trip in May Southampton-Hamburg-Southampton, conveniently adjacent to a work trip to London.  Counting the days to February!

4 hours ago, Underwatr said:

One final plus - I understand that these are new coffee machines. The ones in Kings Court are to dispense either coffee of hot water (and were frequently out of order, btw), but the machine down outside of Connexions on Deck 2 could also dispense lattes (with real milk) and cappuccinos, either with regular or decaf coffee. I didn't discover it until the trip back north to New York but after that I'd find a reason to walk past that area mid-morning.

Excellent! - I'm so glad the Deck 2 Connexions coffee is back.  It was a long walk from insight lectures to deck 7 to get coffee refills.

QE had new coffee machines also when we were last aboard in August/September.  QE's look similar but different.  They seemed fairly reliable.

36 minutes ago, Flickit said:

Tauranga - Mount Maunganui today.

Thanks much for your photo updates, @Flickit.  Appreciate you sharing your adventures.  It looks like your weather has been a bit hazy/stormy.  Or is it just my eyesight getting fuzzier with age?

A little over two months to go for us to be back on QE again.  Counting the days!

2 hours ago, rog747 said:

May I have my first go at WITW please>? 

There is much history surrounding the chap in the statue.
If you look very close you can just see the Cunard ship...an extra point if you can name her.

That would be the statue of Charles I of Austria, in the Monte gardens of Funchal, Madeira.  Both QE and QV have been there this year, QV a bit more recently, so I'll guess QV.  In your photo, the ship seems to be more to the left side of the Funchal pier, whereas QE was further to the right when we were there on 14 September.